The feminine faces reflect determination, poverty or surprise, others youthful optimism or contentment, while some appear beat down by a long, hard life but still upright and proud. One young woman, clad in bell bottoms and an Army jacket, seems to stare toward an uncertain future.
The multi-racial faces are captured in their own small piece of the world, encapsulated within black and white emulsion by photographer Cheryl Cohen, who was commissioned by the Pine Bluff Women's Center Inc. in the mid-1970s for a book.
That era redefined the woman-self, and they fought hard and embraced their limited but meaningful liberation, and they led the freedom fight for those who followed.
These are the "Women of the Arkansas Delta." Their images are on display at The ARTSpace on Main.
Leap forward nearly five generations: Their voices remain powerful, strong.
Their same expressions are mirrored in the faces of women marching in protest of Donald Trump's comments about women in 2016. Then again in 2020, they marched for Breonna Taylor, for justice and for equity.
The exhibit
The "Women of the Arkansas Delta" is the first official exhibit in The ARTSpace on Main, the newly opened facility of the Arts and Science Center for Southeast Arkansas.
The women from the 1976 project are Maeleen Clay Arrant, Ora Brown, Lucyle Cantley, Mrs. O. G. Dawson (Ethel B.), Chanah Reid Foti (later LaMarre), Emma Merlo and Jessie Tidwell, and all were of Pine Bluff.
It also includes Geneva Byrd of Tucker, June H. Davis of Altheimer, Idella Kimbrough of Gould, Mildred Laureles of Snow Lake, and Annie R. Zachary Pike of Marvell.
Only two of the women are still alive: Merlo and Pike.
An ASC first
This is ASC's first traveling art exhibit.
"I'm very excited. ... I'm very lucky to have so much support by the community and arts organizations," Chaney Jewell, ASC curator, said.
After closing, the exhibit is scheduled to be shown at the Johnny Cash Boyhood Home museum at Dyess starting on June 27.
After that, it will be at the Delta Gateway Museum at Blytheville and the Lakeport Plantation at Lake Village.
The exhibit is free to the public through grants by the Arkansas Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pine Bluff Advertising & Promotion Commission.
More than an exhibit
A book, "Women of the Arkansas Delta," grew out of a 1976 oral and photographic project of the same name, with the goal of gathering, preserving and publishing information about women.
According to the ASC website, the work was conducted in the mid-1970s by the Pine Bluff Women's Center and made possible by an American Revolution Bicentennial Commission grant, and they interviewed a wide range of women -- African American and white -- including social justice activists, farmers, and small business owners. They ranged in age from elderly to age seven.
The photographs and original negatives were given to ASC.
Fast forward four decades, and then-ASC curator Lenore Shoults, previously ASC's executive director, discovered the photographs and negatives in the center's archives.
Shoults was in the process of putting together the "Women of the Arkansas Delta" exhibit when Jewell took over.
"So I finalized the exhibition, and it traveled to the Delta Gateway Museum (at Blytheville)," Jewell said.
But, once there, it was obvious that visitors weren't satisfied with not knowing what happened to the women originally interviewed post-1976, and Jewell said, "To be frank, I was quite curious myself."
From that, the exhibition was expanded to include updated information about the women, selections of original audios, updated photographs of the women's hometowns and an accompanying virtual exhibition.
At ASC, Jewell grouped the women from the same hometowns together, when possible, with notable landscapes mixed in with the portraits.
The takeaway
"I am hoping that the audience can feel a connection towards these women," Jewell said.
Though over 45 years have passed since the original project, she said, "I'm sure that many people today can relate to the worries, struggles, experiences and joys these women experienced in the Delta."
The ARTSpace on Main, 623 S. Main St., is part of ASC's growing campus, which includes its original facility and the soon-to-open ART WORKS building. All are located in the sixth and seventh blocks of Main Street in downtown Pine Bluff.
The "Women of the Arkansas Delta" exhibit is open to the public Tuesday, Thursday and Saturdays from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m., and it runs through May 29.
